How FAW started their web page design (coded) journey

Summary

Need a creative design for a legal client that wants an independent blog to help people that blow the whistle on companies. This is the first of numerous blogs being designed into a blog network so the winner will be in pole position for more work. Needs to be easy to make SEO adjustments, add widgets etc. I am happy to answer questions.

What inspires you and how do you envision the design for your business?

This contest is for the full design of a WordPress Blog and a great opportunity for the winning designer.

The site will focus on helping, advising and discussing whistleblowing in a corporation. (Think Enron, Worldcom etc.)

The visitors to the site will typically be people who have reported fraud in companies or those that think they may need to report corrupt management or practices.

The tone of the site should be relaxed and authoritative. The Blogger is a legal client of ours and wants to try blawgs as a means of helping people and for finding potential clients. It will not be branded by the law firm so you are free and encouraged to let your vision flow.

Be Creative! It is important that it retain a credible expert feel without being complicated, busy or stuffy. We are here to help people and to get good information out.

My preference would be to overhaul an existing template known as adflex blog available for download free herehttp://www.vklabs.com/wordpress/ I am fine of course with keeping the links to the creators vkLabs (and potentially yours). There is a small advantage in winning if this template is used.

I do NOT really like the style/layout of this template, I love the flexibility of it and for the speed and ease of doing little adjustments, especially SEO without diving into the code at all...

If you cannot use this template then my preference would be a 3 column content-left layout.

General direction
2.0 clean & easy to read (probably light background)
expert / authority feel but not stuffy. think reliable, trustworthy, solid
This site is about helping people report fraud properly, laws around this action,
their rights, dangers and recovering.
Photo headers etc are fine but you must be able to sell final design if you win, photo costs you will need to cover.
The central theme is about whistleblowers protection

No set colors. Purple, Toned off red, solid blue your call - be creative, logical and easy on the eye.

One final point is simplicity for users and blogger. This is a first time blogger so aim for it to look fine only to have a fairly short
homepage with a 2 to 5 recent posts in summary , I do not see this blog ever needing more than 3 or 4 post intros on the index and I would
consider slightly larger font or narrower content column so length of blog is not a weakness, however this is not a huge factor.

I will be checking for questions every couple hours or email me. I am happy to do a short call (english) as well if that
would help, just email me to arrange around our time zones.

email is JollyRogerX (@) gmail (.) com

As a final note I am Chief at a Marketing Company and have other blogs, blawgs and projects. This design will
be the seed to what will be a Blawg network and winning this is key to the inside track to quite a bit more... Good solid work is rewarded.

We urge you to enter and to contact us so we can keep a look out for your design... We pay the winner fast.

We prefer the the new blog to be installed (notify us prior to close if not possible) hosting with latest clean WP will be provided.

Brand, Tagline optional if you have ideas feel free to make suggestions.